Chinese president urged military to prepare for war with âdecliningâ West â media

Chinese President Xi Jinping told military leaders at a meeting in 2020 that with his country ârisingâ and the West âdeclining,â Beijing needed to prepare for a war between both sides, Japanâs Kyodo News reported on Monday.
Citing documents from a December 2020 meeting between Xi and the Chinese Communist Partyâs Central Military Commission, the Japanese outlet claimed that Xi declared âthe East is rising and the West is declining.â
Amid this shifting power balance, Xi predicted that a localized conflict could break out and widen, although he supposedly ruled out the possibility of a third world war. It is unclear where Xi saw such a conflict originating, but Kyodo News suggested that he viewed Taiwan as a likely flashpoint.
The documents were reportedly compiled after the 2020 meeting and issued to Chinese commanders and party officials last summer. By that point, Russia was fighting what President Vladimir Putin termed âthe entire Western military machineâ in Ukraine, and tensions between the US and China over Taiwan had reached a boiling point over US President Joe Bidenâs repeated insistence that he would defend the Chinese-claimed island with military force.
At the time of Xiâs meeting, Russiaâs military operation in Ukraine was still more than a year away, and although then-US president Donald Trump was waging a trade war against Beijing, relations between the two superpowers hadnât yet reached the nadir that they would under the Biden administration.
Regardless, Xi reportedly stressed the need for the Chinese military to âprepare for the outbreak of a war and its chain reactions,â and ordered commanders to âbe constantly ready for fightingâ to defend Chinaâs sovereignty and national interest.
Xiâs comments took place behind closed doors, but the Chinese leader often makes similar statements in public. He instructed troops to âcomprehensively strengthen military training in preparation for warâ during a visit to a command center last year, and in April told soldiers to focus their training toward âactual combatâ in defense of Chinaâs âterritorial sovereignty and maritime interests.â
While Xi has also referred to the West as âdecliningâ before, he reportedly cautioned during the 2020 meeting that its military advantage âbasically remains unchanged.â
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